1942
1941 1942 1943 Events * Anglo-Soviet Pact of 1942, a 20 years treay promising co-operation against German aggression. * Reggae genius Desmond Dekker is born. * Aims of Industry is established with funding from Tate & Lyle to enable the British Conservative Party to evade legal election campaign spending limits. * Kim Philby marries second wife Aileen Furse. * Sebastien Faure dies. Timeline January * January 4: Victor Sorge espionage ring member Hisao Funakoshi is arrested in Beijing. * January 13: In London the Inter Allied Conference on the Punishment of War Crimes issues the "Declaration of St. James." The focus is on atrocities committed by Axis armies on the ground. * January 14: Japanese troops land at oil center Balikpapan in Borneo. February * February 8: Nazi armaments planner Fritz Todt dies in a suspicious aircraft accident. * February 10: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issues an order to British regional commander in chief Archibald Wavell in Malaysia and Singapore that his officers and troops should die fighting rather than surrender to the Japanese. :::: "There must be at this stage no thought of saving the troops or sparing the population. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs...Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honor of the British Army is at stake." :::: Instead, the British surrender on February 15. British and Commonwealth troops then riot and loot Singapore. 130,000 are taken captive by the Japanese. * February 12: British Capt. Geoffrey Morton discovers Zionist terrorist Avraham Stern hiding in a closet in a residence in Tel Aviv and kills him as he attempts to flee out of a window. * February 14: The British Air Ministry announces a new directive that intensive nighttime bombing of Germany would begin. That meant the bombing of cities rather than of specific military targets. * February 17: Future Black Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton is born in Monroe, Louisiana. * February 19: President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the relocation of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. * February 19: Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger (Military Aviation of the Royal Netherlands-Indies Army) pilots flying 8 Brewster Buffalos shoot down 11 Japanese bombers at a cost of half their own number. March * March 18: FDR issues Executive order 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority. * March 21: The Manzanar internment camp opens in California. * March 21: Adolf Hitler appoints Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel as general plenipotentiary for labor mobilization. * March 28-29: 234 British RAF bombers drop incendiary bombs on the German city of Lubeck (popualtion 150,000). Death toll was 320 killed. * March 31: Newspaper editor and Victor Sorge espionage ring member Yoshio Kawamura is arrested. April * April 17: Heinrich Himmler visits the Warsaw Ghetto in the evening; the Gestapo executes 50 Jewish prisoners in Pawiak prison. * April 25-26: English city of Bath bombed by the German Luftwaffe with high explosive and incendiary bombs. May * May: The gas chambers at the Birkenau extermination camp at Auschwitz begin operating. * May 17: Japanese government first disclosure of information about the Victor Sorge espionage ring to newspapers. June * June 8: Victor Sorge espionage ring member Dr. Tokutaro Yasuda is arrested. * June 13: Office of the Coordinator of War Information is split into two organizations: Office of War Information (OWI) and Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS is the forerunner of the CIA. The new OSS had 800 employees. * June 15: Future Democratic U.S. Representative Anthony Coelho is born in Los Baños, Merced County, California. First elected to Congress in 1978. July * July 14: Javier Solana is born in Madrid. August * August 4: Bracero Program - United States and Mexico sign agreement to deliver contract Mexican labor to American farmers in order to serve as cheap replacement labor during World War II. This Day in Labor History * August 19: Dieppe Raid (Operation Jubilee) by Canadian Army and British Marines. September * September 5: Canadian ore carriers S.S. Saganaga and the S.S. Lord Strathcona sunk by German submarine U-513. * September 8: British imperial government in India imposes fines under the Collective Fines ordinance for the first time. * September 17: Gen. Leslie Groves is ordered to take command of the Manhattan Project. October * October 7: Wehrmacht issues Kommandobefehl or Commando Order. * October 16: Cyclone strikes Midnapore/Medinipur/Midnapur. November * November 11: Case Anton German occupiation of southern France and disbanding of the collaborationist Vichy Government's "Armistice Army." * November 20: Future U.S. Senator and Vice President Joe Biden is born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. December * December 2: A group of scientists, led by Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi launch the nuclear age. The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction initiated by man takes place beneath the West Stands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. In three years the United States would commit mass murder using the first atomic weapons. * December 15: Victor Sorge and Ozaki Hotsumi are convicted of violating the Peace Preservation Law and National Defense Security Law. * December 15: Newspaper editor and Victor Sorge espionage ring member Yoshio Kawamura dies in prison. * December 24: Twenty-two year old Monarchist? Fernand Bonnier assassinates Vichy French Admiral François Darlan in his office. * December 26: Fernand Bonnier is executed by firing squad.